Here we are my friends!! We are officially halfway through Anniversary Review Week!! I seriously cannot believe we are already halfway through. It really has begun to fly by for me as I write all of these. The show that I am reviewing today is actually a show that I had actually not really liked until recently. It was okay for me the first time, but a second watch really earned it a spot as one of my favorite anime.

So here I am with my 14th Anime Review and Day 4 of Anniversary Review Week!! A show that took me a second watch to come to love: Gundam Build Fighters.

Gundam Build Fighters aired back in October of 2013 and finished in March of 2014 and consisted of 25 episodes. A sequel to the series, Gundam Build Fighters Try, aired from October of 2014 to April of 2015 and also had 25 episodes. So we got a total of 50 episodes focused on the world of Build Fighters. I am only going to review the original series Gundam Build Figthers in this review.

Before I go on, I’m going to give you a little bit of a back story about my history with this show. As a big fan of mecha anime, I am very familiar with all of the Mobile Suit Gundam Series. Before this show was released, I had just finished watching Mobile Suit Gundam AGE which is one of my favorite mech shows of all time. When it ended though, I was a little upset with the ending. Shortly after that it was announced that Build Fighters would be released and I was excited about it. I watched the show the first time and was not very fond of it. It was okay and would not really earn a spot of my favorite anime list. Then Build Fighters Try came out and I decided to give it a try too, and I loved it! I actually found myself missing characters from the old show while I was watching Try. I was so confused. Why was I missing characters that I did not like? So I gave the show another go, and it was like I was watching something entirely different. I loved it and I still do not understand why. It was like the second series made the first series more enjoyable for me.

On to the story. Build Fighters centers around the world of building Gundam Models or “Gunpla”. It takes place after the release of the original Mobile Suit Gundam series. Tournaments are held where people can build Gunpla and battle each other to become the best Gunpla Battle. It revolves around Sei Iori, a young boy who dreams of becoming the top battler in the world. His family owns a Gunpla shop and his father is a famous battler. Although Sei wants to be the best, he has poor piloting skills. It is then that he stumbles upon Reiji, who agrees to help Sei become the top Gunpla Battler.

I always liked Sei as a main character. He is not perfect and I believe that is why his character is appealing to a lot of people. We get to see him fight for his dream and evolve as the show progresses. Although he is good at building Gunpla, his piloting skills are pretty low. Since his dad is a famous battler you can tell that it weighs on him a little bit. He has to work hard and fight for what he wants. His character is very charming and he even appealed to me the first time that I watched it. He’s adorable and is fun to watch on screen.

Reiji, on the other hand, still bothers me a little bit even after the second watch. He is revealed to be the prince of a country on a distant planet, and that always bothered me. It works itself into the plot towards the end of the show, but it still bothers me. The fact that he is your arrogant princely character does not bother me as much as the whole foreign planet thing does. I cannot really explain it, but as long as his home country was not mentioned (and I kind of forgot about it) then it was fine. It was just that one thing that still bothers me about Reiji. I just never really understood why it was necessary.

This show has multiple other characters that I could talk about who play important roles in the show. However, I would probably be here for a while. There are a lot of them and I do not think I would do them enough justice to try and talk about them all in just one post. I would have to say that Tatsuya Yuuki is one of my favorite characters in the show. He is so flamboyant when he is talking about Gunpla and I just love it!!

The soundtrack for this show is amazing. It fits the show very well and was always nice to listen to. The openings and endings matched the show perfectly. Most of them made their way onto my iPod and I still enjoy going back and listening to all of them. As for the animation. Well it has mechs and was done by Sunrise so……it was beautiful. The battle scenes were like they were out of any other Gundam show. Even the scenes that did not have he battles were well done. All I can say is that is was very well done and fun to watch.

Although I did not like Build Fighters the first time though, I did enjoy it very much the second time around and still do now. It taught me that I should not always judge a show based on the first time that I watch it. All it needed was a second change and a sequel to make me love it. It has earned its rightful place as one of my favorite anime, along with many other Gundam shows.

In the end I award Gundam Build Fighters with an A. The plot was interesting and something that I had never seen done before. The characters, even the background ones, were very well done and I enjoyed them. I do not understand why it took a second watch for me to completely change my opinion of it, it just did. It is something that I cannot understand and have stopped any attempts to. As far as I am concerned, it is an amazing show and I highly recommend it. If you like mech shows that is.

Well that is all that I have for this review and Day 4 of Anniversary Review Week. What do you guys think? Have you watched a show a second time and completely changed your opinion of it? Why do you think it did change? Let me know down in the comments below!! And as always, if there is a show that you would like me to review then feel free to leave that down below as well!!

"I am the hope of the universe. I am the answer to all living things that cry out for peace. I am protector of the innocent. I am the light in the darkness. I am truth. Ally to good! Nightmare to you!" - Goku